


A Stitch in Time Saves Nine

by tisfan



Series: Open Ask Prompts [6]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Age Regression/De-Aging, M/M, Magic, Princess - Freeform, Quests
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-27
Updated: 2016-12-27
Packaged: 2018-09-12 13:24:43
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,023
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9073807
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tisfan/pseuds/tisfan
Summary: When the Winter Soldier gets hit with a death curse, it's up to Tony Stark to make the ultimate sacrifice...





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Potrix](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Potrix/gifts).



> Potrix-the-queerschlaeger asks:
> 
> If that sort of thing is up your alley, how about some winteriron and de-aging shenanigans that eventually get them together? I don’t care which of them (or both) vets de-aged, it can be cracky or angst, babies or kids or teens, I don’t care.

“Curses have rules,” Strange said. “Think of magic as an equation, if you must --” and of course Tony must, because he was there at the Sanctum Sanctorum, and he had a six-year-old Winter Soldier in tow “-- on one side, you have the effects, in this case, a deaging, and on the other side, you have the manner to break the spell.” 

“Which is what, exactly?” Tony asked, glancing down at the tiny Winter Soldier, still dressed in his tactical gear, including the muzzle, and a tiny little adamantium arm, which somehow shrank to match. Perhaps on the plus side, he didn’t have tiny little machine guns, since the tiny little glare he’d been directing at Tony for most of the evening had death behind it. 

Tony hadn’t quite had to put a leash on him, but at least for a while, he’d had to carry the boy by shoving an arm through the weapons harness and toting him around like a backpack. 

“You ask me that like I’ve seen the blackboard where the spell was created,” Strange said. “I have not. What happened to the caster?” 

“Dead. It was an accident,” Tony said, feeling uncountably guilty. It wasn’t like he hadn’t killed before; his hands were as bloody as anyone on the team’s, but he tried not to. They all tried not to, but sometimes it was inevitable. “The guy was a summoner; he had all sorts of critters doing his bidding, huge things, like nightmares given form. When the Winter Soldier brought one of them down, it sort of fell on the guy. Squish.” 

“Oh.” 

“That was an informed sounding ‘oh,’ Strange.” 

“Death Curse. In the instant before a sorcerer's death, they direct all their rage and fear and magic against the target that caused their death. Usually, it kills the other party, but I suppose Mr. Barnes’s advanced age can be taken into consideration; if he was willed out of existence by someone who didn’t know the truth, ninety years would be been more than enough. Seems like they missed by this much to making your young friend here nothing more than a twinkle in daddy’s eye.” 

“So, what should we do?” Tony asked. “I mean, we can’t just leave him like this. Poor guy’ll have to go through puberty a second time and I wouldn’t wish that on anyone.” 

“You have to find a new way to balance the equation,” Strange said. “Since the man who cast it is dead, you cannot balance the scales that way. You’ll have to quest for it. You, as in him --” and he pointed a finger at the tiny Winter Soldier “-- and you, since you seem to have taken on the role of his guardian.” 

“I can’t go questing with a six-year-old, Strange, don’t be ridiculous.” 

“I could give you some small aid on that particular front, but it would put a time limit on your questing.” 

“Why do I get the feeling you’re about to suggest something truly stupid?” 

“No, I assure you, it’s quite clever,” Strange said, “just dangerous. Mostly for you.” 

* * *

 

“This was your great plan, Stark?” Barnes glowered at him, but it didn’t have as much force behind it as usual. He was sixteen, sweet-faced, and there was just a certain gravitas that he lacked. 

“It’s not my best plan, no,” Tony said, “just the only one available. Come on, Frosted Flake, we haven’t got much time.” 

“Don’t got much time to what?” 

Tony showed the Winter Soldier the watch on his arm. “I lent you some of my years,” Tony said. “Which is why you’re sixteen and I’m back in my thirties. But it won’t last.” 

“So, I’ll go back to being six?” 

“Not exactly, no,” Tony said. 

Barnes planted his feet, staring around in the forest where Strange had left them. Apparently omens and portents pointed out that their quest was… somewhere around here. Very specific. Tony _hated_ magic. “Explain, or I ain’t goin’ anywhere.” 

“I gave you ten years because that’s what I could spare and got you old enough to be useful,” Tony said. “But we’re tied together now. In an hour, you’ll be a year older, and I’ll be a year younger.” 

“And what happens in thirty-three hours?” 

“I’ll never have been born and you’ll be about fifty. Unfortunately, that won’t fix this either, you’ll have to keep going on your own, then, because you’ll start rolling back as soon as you’re out of my life energy. That gives you three days before you get back into middle-school age.” 

“Are you out of your fucking mind?” Barnes grabbed his arm. “Why would you do this?” 

“Lack of other options and I didn’t feel like questing with a six-year-old. I have a heart condition, you know.” Tony glanced around, picked the darkest, ugliest looking path, that was surely it, because it was a quest and because magic and because that was just the way his luck ran, every damn day. 

“Stark.” Barnes pulled him to a halt again, and weird how Barnes was so strong that he could do that, and at the same time so gentle that it didn’t hurt. “You’re willing to sacrifice yourself, for me? I don’t understand. I killed your parents, why would you…” 

“I do believe it has escaped everyone’s goddamn notice that this wouldn’t be the first fucking time,” Tony snapped, finally losing his grip on his temper. “Everyone says it, _everyone_. I’m not the one to make the big sacrifice, I’m only fighting for myself. I don’t have to prove anything to you, or to Steve, or to the rest of the fucking team. A team that continues to act like I’m not on it. And it’s not about you. It’s about what I have to do so that I can live with _myself_. What you have to do to live with yourself and what you’ve done, well, honey, that’s none of my fucking business.” 

* * *

 

Quests sucked. 

Tony stepped gingerly around the bodies of the monsters that, by all signs, Barnes’s mind had conjured up. They went particularly after him, and from what little Tony could understand of his panicked screaming, they were straight out of Barnes’s nightmares. They hadn’t been hard to kill; the problem was that they wouldn’t stay dead until Barnes actually hurt them. Tony could repulsor them in the face until the cows came home, but they just got back up. Until Barnes recovered something of his courage, they just got up again. 

The particularly disgusting part of it was how all of them, every last one of the monsters, had the face of someone Barnes had killed in his role as the Winter Soldier. Which meant Tony got to shoot Howard in the face several times (kinda oddly therapeutic) and then spent a while trying to dodge a monster wearing his own mother’s face. That was not so much fun, and thank _fuck_ that Barnes had pulled it together, because really, Tony was having a hard time with it. 

Barnes was sobbing over the body of a monster with the face of a girl not more than four. “I didn’t, I didn’t,” he kept saying, over and over, and eventually Tony dragged the monster corpses into a pile and used the laser cutter to set them on fire, because looking at the bodies wasn’t helping anyone. 

“Come on, Red October,” Tony said. “Time’s counting down, and I don’t think we need to be here any longer.” 

Barnes looked up at him; he was older now, early twenties, and his face was full of more grief and remorse than Tony had ever seen before. Which was just goddamn unfair, because Tony prefered the scowling   _fuck you_ face; the one that knew he’d been forced to do horrible things as the Winter Soldier and who didn’t think he was worth saving, but was still angry enough to fight back. This… this kid, didn’t look angry at all, he looked sickened. Horrified. Like there were nightmares behind his eyes that he could never unsee. 

Tony knew a bit about that. 

* * *

 

Typical questing; first there were monsters, then there were riddles. Fortunately for them, Tony was a genius. Fortunately for them, Barnes was a historian -- probably more by dint of being alive through most of the last century -- and knew a fuckton of trivia. 

Also, both of them had read _The Hobbit_ , which made that last question really damn easy. 

* * *

 

They were both twenty-five; Tony was quite sure of that age, because suddenly the old injury, where he’d jacked up his knee in a drunken tumble down the stairs and that bothered him in bad weather just stopped hurting. Which was great on the one hand, and kinda shitty on the other. 

Not much time left. Little more than a day left, and Tony really needed some fucking sleep, so he was going to have to lose another four or five years just so his brain and his legs could keep going. 

“I’ll carry you,” Barnes said. 

“What?” 

“I’m strong, and I can go on very little sleep. I still have the serum, as stupid and impossible as it should be, since I never even got injected with the stuff til I was twenty seven, but I got the metal arm almost six years after that, so magic and logic ain’t got fuck all to do with each other. So, you sleep. I’ll carry you.” 

“Do you even know where we’re going?” 

“No, but neither do you,” Barnes said. “We’re just walking around, _looking_. And shit keeps finding us, so I expect it’s more of the fucking same.” 

“I don’t know if I can sleep while you’re carrying me like a princess,” Tony said. 

“Don’t be stupid, Tony,” Barnes said. “You’re about to drop over, now _let me help you_.” 

Cradled in Bucky’s arms, Tony probably got the best sleep of his life. 

* * *

 

Typical stupid quest. 

They offered aid to an ugly old woman, helping her cross a raging river, the whole time she was calling them names and being insulting. She turned into a typical lovely woman on the other side and rewarded each of them with a token. Tony wondered if there was some cosmic vending machine that the token would be useful for. 

He was twenty, and Bucky Barnes was the best looking thing he’d seen in his entire life, older, confident, strong, powerful. Tony couldn’t stop staring, watching him out of the corner of his eye. It was a stupid crush, he’d forgotten it as he’d gotten older, but when Tony was in high school, and later in college, he’d nursed a flame for the one Howling Commando that died. Howard, of course, had his man-crush on Steve, had spent millions of dollars and thousands of man-hours trying to find the man who’d saved the world. 

But Tony had read Bucky Barnes comics with an obsessiveness that he tried hard to keep hidden. But he’d had a Bucky Bear, and later some of the action figures and posters and collectible cards. He remembered geeking out about it once, with Agent Agent, who traded him a first edition 1943 card of Bucky for his Pre-Serum Steve rare card. 

Tony was twenty; not much time left at all. 

And if he was going to do something about this stupid crush he was nurturing that had come back and drowned him when he woke up in Bucky’s arms, staring up at the man’s stormcloud eyes like an enchanted princess, then he should do it now, before he got too young and it became creepy and gross instead of merely inappropriate. 

“Hey,” Tony said, grabbing Bucky’s hand. “You know, it occurred to me that we’ve not tried the very typical way of breaking a curse.” 

“Which is?” Bucky looked down at their interlocked fingers, his eyebrows slashing down in confusion. 

“What does the prince always do for the princess to break the spell?” 

“Who’s the princess in this particular scenario?” Bucky asked. 

“You.” Tony reached up and touched Bucky’s cheek. “On account of you being so fucking beautiful. And the whole sleeping in cryo for decades.” 

Bucky smirked, and Tony couldn’t decide if it was an amused smirk, or an I see right through you smirk, or a flirty smirk. Didn’t matter. Those gorgeous, plush lips curled up and his eyes brightened and Tony was lost. Excuses didn’t matter and the things that Bucky had done as the Winter Soldier didn’t matter, and even the curse didn’t matter, because Tony Stark was going to get to kiss Bucky Barnes at least one time before he died. 

Tony cupped the back of Bucky’s neck and brought him down, touching his lips to Bucky’s smirk, which held up for only a few seconds under Tony’s onslaught before falling off. Bucky groaned into Tony’s mouth. Tony licked his way into that open mouth, like flicking frosting off a cupcake, sweet, sensual, tasting and exploring and then Bucky’s hands were in Tony’s hair, pulling them closer, taking over the kiss. Teaching Tony the shape of his mouth, the flavor of his responses, the sounds of his wanting. 

They had no time for it, _none_ , and it was stupid, but that didn’t stop them. Bucky was undressing Tony as fast as he could, and Tony was more than just not stopping him, he was actively helping. Their fingers tangled in each others as they struggled with buttons and zippers, and they couldn’t stop kissing as if their lives depended on it. 

The forest floor was covered in moss, a verdant blanket, soft and pliable under Tony’s bare skin. There was a question in Bucky’s eyes, but he didn’t give it voice, and there was an answer in Tony’s mouth, but he didn’t show it. Bucky twined their fingers together, pushing Tony down into the moss, pressing weight on him, covering him like a blanket. 

At first, there was too much friction, almost agony as Bucky rutted against him, and then the sweat and precome between them made for delicious slide. Tony was gasping in mere moments, begging and pleading against the silken heat of Bucky’s shoulder. Bucky was as silent in love as he was in life, urgent and breathing hard, but making only low groans and shuddering sighs. Except at the very end, when the slick movements between them became unbearable and Tony had come in a blossom of wet heat, did Bucky give voice to his feelings, uttering one brief, wild cry before burying his face against Tony’s neck. 

* * *

 

Tony was a teenager, maybe fourteen, and his voice started cracking when he talked. Maybe one of the only times in his life that he didn’t want to talk, and he was going to go through it twice. They hadn’t seen a soul in hours, and the forest was mere blackness and shadow. 

It was harder to keep up hope. But maybe after Tony was gone, Bucky would find something, some reason, some cause, some light in the darkness.

 If there were stars, they couldn’t be seen through the canopy of the trees around them. No mountains, no castles, no improbable unicorns. Just more blackness. And silence. Silences that Tony didn’t know how to fill. 

* * *

 

Tony was six. He clung to the hand of the man he walked with. The forest was alive with terror, with blackness. There were monsters there, and Tony was afraid. He’d forgotten everything else, why they were here, what they hoped to accomplish, where they were going. There was only fear and the warm hand of the man who walked at his side. 

* * *

 

“No,” a voice in the darkness, harsh and ragged. The boy didn’t even know his name anymore, he had some vague sense that once, there had been so much more that he knew, so much that he remembered, that he felt, but now, there were warm arms around him and he was being rocked to sleep. “No, please. Not him, not him.” 

The boy reached up one hand and touched it to the man’s cheek. Tears glittered there. 

“Please don’t take him, take me if you have to take someone,” the voice said. The boy didn’t even understand the words, but the tone was longing and grief and bewildering anger. 

“No, no! Tony, don’t… don’t go. Don’t leave me.” 

… there was blackness. 

* * *

 

Waking up in Strange’s sitting room was not a thing that Tony had expected. 

He wasn’t sure what he’d expected. A vasty nothingness, maybe. A chance to rest. To find out if there was an afterlife (he kinda hoped not, really, as this life had been full of suck, and he wasn’t sure he’d met any sane God’s expectations of him enough to earn a reward.) 

The fire was blue. That’s how he knew it had to be Strange’s sitting room. 

“You’re an accomplished quester, my friend,” Strange said, looking up from the thick tome he was studying. “I had not expected either of you to return, to be quite frank. A fool’s errand.” 

“Then why did you send us?” Tony stretched, his muscles hurt all over. He brushed a hand over himself, everything seemed intact, if old again, and that was sort of annoying. 

“Sometimes a thing can only be accomplished by fools… and by dreamers,” Strange said. Tony rolled his eyes. Typical mysticism. 

A warm body rolled over against him, an arm stretched out to circle his waist and try to pull him back down onto the sofa. Bucky. Tony reached down and patted Bucky’s shoulder, affection, fondness. Okay, stop lying to yourself, Stark. It was… something else. Something more. 

“Love,” Strange said. “The answer was there in front of you both the whole time. Love, forgiveness, sacrifice. The only things that can break a death curse, and the hardest things to force. If I’d just told you, could you have loved? Forgiven? Could he? You had to learn each other, come to those conclusions together. And now you know.” 

“Now I know,” Tony repeated, looking down at the face of the man he’d been willing to give up everything for. Bucky opened his stormcloud gray eyes. 

Forgiveness. 

Sacrifice. 

_Love._


End file.
